Tuesday, 1 January 2013

The Terror Of A Blank Slate

Yet another new world. It's getting old. One reason i adopted the duodecimal system is that the time divisions are less frequent - longer "decades", "centuries" and "millenia" for example. That means that the new start illusion can occur less often, and such things as New Year's Resolutions are discouraged.

This morning's second video:

whose doobleydoo (sp?) is here:

Why I resolved not to make New Year's Resolutions.

I'm speaking for myself here but think it probably applies to some other people. People often say that when you make New Year's resolutions, you're setting yourself up to fail. That doesn't apply to me. I actually can't break them and as a result i no longer make them.

It's not a good thing that i keep resolutions because they're a trap. They're promises or commitments which restrict me from doing things which would otherwise be good. For instance, i'm teetotal with the exception of communion and medical uses of alcohol and as a result, if i'm asked to do something like toast someone at a wedding or their birthday, i take a mouthful of wine or champagnem then spit it back into the glass, which to me feels like i'm insulting them, so i do it surreptitiously. This seems inflexible, but the distinctive feature of a resolution is that it is inflexible, or it would be meaningless.

Resolutions, promises, vows, undertakings and the like are speech acts which make themselves true. When you make a resolution, that very act renders it unethical to break it regardless of whatever else happens, and you can't anticipate the circumstances which might arise in which it would be better not to do the thing you've resolved to do, so it kind of amounts to an obligation to do wrong in some situations, which is absurd.

I made a resolution to get a girlfriend once, and of course it worked because that's what happens with me. The relationship i got into, however, was probably bad for both of us and though we are still close friends and it led to my marriage to someone else, it probably would've been better if i hadn't made that resolution.

Therefore, it doesn't make sense to make resolutions which you can't break unless you know everything which might happen, and if you make resolutions on the understanding that you might break them, they're not really resolutions at all.The paradox here, of course, is that in a sense this amounts to a resolution in itself, and i don't really know where to go with that!

This has already annoyed someone this year, so that's a plus.

Last night's attempt to say the same thing and showcase my beloved offspring is here:

and its dublidu is here:

2012/2013 - What was good about 2012, what we want to leave behind in 2012 and what new stuff we want to happen in 2013.

...but as usual it seems to have fanell stillborn from the press, to misquote David Hume.

So, dear void, another blank slate lies before me, except this time i'm resisting the urge to project my fears onto it. The two big ones are the changes to Working Tax Credit and the attempt by HMRC to remove all the money we use. My contingency plan should the latter happen probably involves selling the medical screen, examination couch and otoscope, though of course that still won't be another. The former takes me into the realm of failure not being an option, but in a novel way. Whereas it's possible that we could've tried harder, it's hard to see how, but taking it beyond that, successful possibilities still exist, as follows:

The somewhat disturbing idea of doing something massively socially useful but highly illegal, whereof i currently have nothing in mind (but then i would say that, wouldn't i?). The problem with this is that although it results in free accommodation, it also probably results in free sexual assault and being murdered, and removes exist ramp options due to one's shoelaces being removed.

The somewhat less disturbing but considerably more self-obsessed and apparently selfish (so people say) of taking the exist ramp without having one's shoelaces forcibly removed but probably doing so in a hotel room somewhere, since i wouldn't be paying the bill.

The option that tends to preoccupy me the most for reasons previously gone into, but which is, however, quite unrealistic:

(Yeah i know: naughty).

It does strike me, however, that the last option is in a fantasy realm which the government seems to imagine i can enter for some reason. The question arises of whether the same is true of others or whether my situation is unique in important ways.

In what seems to be a digression, i will now paint you a scenario:

One of the perks of being a Shakespearean actor is that you might get to wear fancy costumes, but from an external perspective, this is probably only something which works from the outside. Presumably actually being a Shakespearean actor involves nerve-wracking toil and you never get to enjoy the tights and the ruffs because you end up associating them with your tiresome day job which sucks away at your life like a trovamp. Yes! I can use that here because only i'm reading this, and violate a completely separate set of intellectual property rights than the above image by posting this:

Other news: I have embarked on a major project for the Other Channel which i hope will have positive fallout for the main one. It involves animation and fiddling with my voice in entertaining ways.